When Keith and I started dating, we claimed May Day for our own special holiday. We celebrated our love (that crazy, passionate, 17-year old high school love) as if we would be together forever.

Despite their surname “May,” Keith’s family didn’t make too much of this holiday, so when a doorbell announced an unattended basket of flowers and candy hanging on the door, I could tell Keith was delighted. I also remember that first May Day card I crafted for Keith. I signed it “All my love. All my life” - and I’ve written that inscription on countless cards to him since.

A few years later, we added a tiny basket for our baby Maggie, then little Mollie. When the girls were old enough, they drew pictures on the baskets, added stickers, and helped fill them with candy. Each year, we would leave baskets at the doors of grandparents, family, and special friends - then hide so they wouldn’t know who left them. Sometimes the kids would help make baskets for neighbors and co-workers too, or the staff at McDonald’s, or the mailman.

Eventually, we added our daughters’ boyfriends to the list. Then husbands. Then grandchildren. Then boyfriends and girlfriends of grandchildren. And, hopefully soon, we will add great-grandchildren. Over these many years, I estimate I’ve crafted hundreds and hundreds of May Baskets.

I try to imagine what 17-year old me would think if she’d only have known this cute guy named Keith would give her such a beautiful family, such a beautiful life.

And then I remember somehow she did know: “All my love. All my life.”